Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Have the Minister and others on that side of the House already forgotten about Vicky Phelan and the statements we all made in this Chamber when she died? We talked about what would happen and what would be done for women. The Minister has a unique chance to bring in legislation that covers all situations. I have no doubt he would have the backing of all Deputies on this side of the House if he did so.

I listened to most of the debate from my office. It has been repeated all evening that no one has an issue with the Bill or the amendments. The problem is the way the Minister is dealing with the Bill, as well as the absence of a statutory duty of candour. That can be changed very easily. It can be changed tonight by the Minister. The Bill places no obligation on a provider or anyone else to inform a patient of his or her right to Part 5 at the point of diagnosis. There has to be a system for notifying patients of their rights. That could be done through the National Cancer Registry.

The Bill does not specify that the Minister should prescribe how the review is done. It is like self-regulation. The Government does not need to be reminded by Members on this side of the House where self-regulation got it with housing, banking and all that. The last thing we want in this situation is for self-regulation to lead us down a road down which no one wants to take. The Bill does not even include the discovery of something having gone wrong or an inaccurate reading of a cancer screening sample as a notifiable incident. The Minister might be able to explain to us why that is so. How or when it is discovered should not matter in this context, although it might make a difference to a patient's condition.

There should be a duty to make a disclosure. All the women to whom we have spoken have the right to know that information. There should be no question about that. If this legislation was in place in 2014, Lorraine Walsh, Vicky Phelan and all the other women would not have been informed of any wrong that was done or any wrong reading. They would not have been able to see it in their files. It would not have been discovered until they asked for a review. Has the Minister not listened to any of the survivors? They have said it is like the tribunal all over again for some of them. Nothing will change. They would have to look for a review. That is not what they want. They have made that clear to us over here and I am sure they have done likewise to those on the other side of the House. In the words of another Deputy, if this legislation had been in place in 2014, nobody would have found out what was going on with CervicalCheck. The bottom line is that it is not giving patients the right to information unless they seek it. That should not be the case. The last thing on the mind of patients who get that sort of diagnosis is to ask those kinds of questions. The Bill does not place an obligation on a clinician or providers to inform patients when an error has been made or discovered. They should be big enough to bring that information forward straight away, and the legislation should be there to ensure that happens. It should not matter whether it is a minor error within a particular margin of error or a severe negligent misreading. If there is no obligation on anybody to reveal that they found something wrong, nothing will change and we will have the same conversations over and over again. The biggest scandal is that if we do not introduce regulations now to ensure the information has to be given to patients, we will finish up back here again.

The Minister can argue that the anonymised audit means it is not possible to identify a patient whose slide reading is discordant, but that would be possible if the system was designed to allow for it, especially in the case of a severe misreading that is outside the acceptable margin of error.

Patients have to be at the heart of this. I agree that we must protect the viability of some of the services. There will be approximately 250,000 CervicalCheck screenings this year, and that is welcome, but the rights of patients have to be protected and that has to come across in the legislation with which we finish up. The burden of responsibility for ensuring the patient gets the truth should not be placed on the people who have cancer. They should not have to ask those kinds of questions. The burden must be placed on the clinician and providers to produce the evidence to the patient.

I am not going to say much more because I am only repeating much of what has been already said. In the words of a specialist who provides counselling and support for women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal, the State pays lip service to acknowledging its mistakes, yet systematic failures are blocking and resisting change, which is causing ongoing heartache and trauma. The bottom line is that it keeps adding to the suffering of the women they meet. It is in the power of the Minister to ensure that this legislation is done as Vicky Phelan and others asked for it to be done and that no other woman goes through what she did. She fought right to the end for herself, and especially for others in the system. The Minister has a chance to change the Bill and to do the right thing by these women. I appeal to him not to let them down, as previous Ministers have done. I ask him to ensure that a statutory duty of candour is included in the Bill. This is his opportunity to make a good statement, one that can be supported by all on this side of the House.

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